


Fairweather Johnson

by paradisecity



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-05
Updated: 2005-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradisecity/pseuds/paradisecity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days Don hates a lot of things. Today isn't one of those days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairweather Johnson

Don's been told several times by several people on several occasions that he's an angry person. He doesn't think they're wrong but he doesn't neccessarily believe them, either. He's not sure what the difference is between the two, just that there is one.

On any given day, though, he hates a number of things. Sometimes he hates Charlie for living so far outside the real world that he doesn't even know what it's like. For being the smart one, the special one. For being an adult, but still being treated and protected, like a much-loved child. For being important. For being enough for himself. For being better at his job than Don will ever be at his.

Sometimes he hates his dad for the way he's split his time and attention. He knows Charlie's the kind of special one ever expected to hold in their hands and there's not a guidebook for raising prodigies. He knows his dad sees the discrepancies in how they were raised and knows he's sorry. He even knows that it's been hard on Charlie, but it's just as hard being the other son, the one who pales in comparison but probably wouldn't have paled on his own. Sometimes Don hates him because he knows if being at his mother's side wasn't enough to achieve equality in his eyes, nothing ever will be.

Sometimes he hates his mother for leaving them the way she did. It seems like everyone got something out of his mother's death: his brother got a crutch, his dad got a new outlook on life, and he got stuck with the bill. Months of pain and suffering and doctor's visits and hospital stays and Charlie will never understand how the stark white walls and ammonia smell of hospitals makes his stomach wrench violently even now. And everyone's made her death into a good part of themselves and then moved on, everyone but him. It's uncharitable to think ill of the dead and it makes him feel guilty, but he figures if you can love them when they're gone, you can feel other things, too.

Sometimes he hates Terry for seeing everything through her damn rose colored glasses. Sometimes things go wrong, sometimes they fail, sometimes the bad guy gets away or gets off and all you're left with at the end of the day is someone injured or dead. She's always relentlessly optimistic, infuriatingly encouraging, stupidly hopeful, and sometimes he doesn't even want to see her face.

Sometimes he hates Larry for having the sort of bond with Charlie Don knows he'll never have with anyone. They speak in a weird half-language, communicating without fully realized thoughts or ideas. They solve the problems of the world, of the universe, right here in his unremarkable house, in his unremarkable backyard, in front of his unremarkable face. They're the people history will remember, and he's jealous for so many reasons.

Sometimes he hates Amita for looking at Charlie the way no one's looked at him in a very long time. Charlie doesn't know, or maybe he does; he doesn't care, or maybe he does; they only thing that's certain is that it's not important to him. There are few things truly worth having in this world, and Charlie's ignoring one of the best because he just doesn't need it. But it'll be there if he decides he wants it, because Charlie is the kind of man women like Amita wait around for.

Sometimes he hates himself. He doesn't have to list the reasons; he knows all too well why.

\--------

But tonight he doesn't hate anyone. When he comes home, Charlie and his dad are sitting around the dinner table playing five card stud and Charlie deals him in before he's halfway through the door.

There are bottles of beer sweating in the dark summer heat in front of them and his dad is in possession of a disproportionate pile of chips. That means Charlie's playing fair: counting cards is nothing but statistics and probability theory, and Charlie could take Vegas for a ride with one hand tied behind his back. But once he gets a few beers in him, he can turn it off and play without using the math. And Charlie playing straight is terrible. He's an abysmal loser with no poker face to speak of, and he always ends up with at least two markers for more chips before the night is through.

Don studies Charlie carefully, winning three hands in a row as he does. No, he doesn't hate Charlie tonight. Instead, he feels something a little like pity, maybe, or sympathy. Charlie's abilities mean he'll never be subject to the whim of probability like everyone else; he'll never lose as much he wins, or get it wrong as often as he gets it right. It makes Don a little sad somehow, because the thinks that, if for no other reason other than the data, Charlie would like to know what being normal is like.

Charlie hates it when they let him win so Don plays straight. And when Charlie needs a marker for more chips three beers in, Don's happy to float it to him.


End file.
